A city in Finland best known as the namesake to mobile phone giant Nokia is floundering in filthy drinking water after a municipal employee sent thousands of gallons of sewage into the water supply. Thousands have fallen ill -- and the water is still dirty.

The 30,000 residents of the small Finnish city of Nokia have long lived according to what city leaders describe as a "principle" etched in stone. "We walk in Nokia boots, we use Nokia toilet paper and we talk using Nokia phones," the saying goes.

Indeed, for close to 150 years the city's fortunes have been inextricably connected to those of the eponymous corporation founded here that would grow to become one of the world's leading telecommunications companies, with almost four times as many workers worldwide as the city has residents.

Now, though, the brand is threatened by a scandal the company can do little about: the "Nokia Water Crisis."

The affair began six weeks ago when a municipal employee in Nokia unwittingly released thousands of gallons of sewage into the city's water supply last November, and over a month later authorities are still trying to clean up the water.

The contamination occurred when the employee turned a wrong valve at the city's sewage treatment plant, a mistake that sent 400,000 liters (105,600 gallons) of only partially filtered waste water spewing down a pipe that feeds the city's water supply.

No doubt, who's the brainiac that designed a system where the plumbing for sewage is even remotely connected to the plumbing for potable water???? This has happened in the US though, I remember a story about how a city worker plumbed a sewage pump into the city's water main. Yuck...

I know! WTF?
For what reason would there even exist a switch that would connect raw sewage to the water supply and WHY would it have ever needed to be flipped in the past of future? I can think of no circumstance that would ever warrant that.

And since it did exist, why wasn’t it CLEARLY MARKED or colored coded....BROWN?!!!

7
posted on 01/09/2008 11:50:46 AM PST
by a real Sheila
("President Obama." Dohhh! That is PAINFUL to say! God help us!)

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